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Grocery crisis Why is food so expensive Marketplace · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:18
  Speaker 1: What do you think about grocery prices these days?
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: So high.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: We're approaching strangers for a reason. Thank you, I appreciate it.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Because before you can understand what's driving food prices up,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: you have to talk to the people paying them. Everything
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: is so high, they're insane. Most shoppers seem to be
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: asking the same question. How did food get so expensive?
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: My monthly grocery bill is starting to look more like
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: my monthly mortgage.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Every shopping cart tells a story. What are you shopping for?
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: For my wife and myself.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: What people can afford, what they can't. So we're uncovering
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: how far Canadians are going to fight soaring grocery prices.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: From savvy strategies to desperate measures. But talk, as they say,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: is cheap. So we're putting money where your mouth is.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: We're going to give you $ 100 and we want to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: see how much of your weekly grocery that will actually cover.
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: Let's show them.
• 1:14
  Speaker 6: Okay, let's go.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: We're calling it the $ 100 challenge. What does that kind
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: of cash get you? At discount brands of the big
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: three grocers. For Loblaw, it's no frills. For Metro, food basics.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: And for Sobeys, it's Freshco. Six families, six grocery lists,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: six locations. First up, personal trainer Alex Martin, shopping for
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: his wife and two sons.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: I got the good stuff. If I have to cut
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: back in other areas to eat better quality food, that's
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: something that I'm going to prioritize for me and my family.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: So will $ 100 be enough?
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: It's a good price. Got lucky. The kids like the
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Cosmic Crisp. These are the best ones, but the most
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: expensive ones.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: The only apples his kids will eat. With the exception
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: of a few kids' snacks, Alex prioritizes healthier, everyday staples.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: This is for the protein smoothies that I make in
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: the morning.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: But what will those choices cost?
• 2:21
  Speaker 6: Here we.
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: Go.
• 2:24
  Speaker 6: Okay, what's the total?
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: The damage, we got $ 175.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: The big ticket item, a pack of chicken breast, $ 22. 91.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: With tax, $ 175.
• 2:43
  Speaker 7: 11.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: 75 over. Alex isn't surprised.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: No, not the way I eat.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: And what do you mean by that?
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Well, like I said, we prioritize whole foods.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And check out the cost of chicken breast. At its
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: peak this year, it was 8.8% higher compared to the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: year before. We share our results with economist Jim Stanford
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: and Professor Mike von Masso of the University of Guelph.
• 3:10
  Speaker 8: Demand for chicken went up because price of all proteins
• 3:13
  Speaker 8: went up and chicken is a cheaper option. Then you
• 3:16
  Speaker 8: also had the supply issue relative to chicks. So demand
• 3:21
  Speaker 8: went up, supply went down, and that's all been compounded
• 3:23
  Speaker 8: by the fat around protein. Everyone's saying, I need to
• 3:26
  Speaker 8: eat more protein.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Other price hikes from Alex's shopping list, frozen fruit was
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: up 8.5% year over year, and bananas were up 11.5%.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: What's causing that price increase?
• 3:40
  Speaker 9: There's a new banana fungus that's affecting crops in several
• 3:43
  Speaker 9: of the different supply countries, so that combined again with
• 3:46
  Speaker 9: high diesel prices from the war in Iran and the
• 3:49
  Speaker 9: cost of shipping, that explains the increase.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: So you wrote to us and you said families are
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: really feeling the pressure. How much pressure are you guys feeling?
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: We definitely notice it when you're paying more for your gas,
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: you're paying more in property tax, you're paying more for
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: kids activities. It just definitely starts to add up in
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: all facets of your life.
• 4:13
  Speaker 10: Oh, it's like ridiculously high. I can't believe it.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Next up, Connie Tong. She knows what it's like to
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: struggle while growing up and again when her husband was
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: laid off.
• 4:25
  Speaker 10: At one point we were deciding whether or not we
• 4:27
  Speaker 10: should choose a roof over our head or putting food
• 4:31
  Speaker 10: on the table.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Now on maternity leave with a reduced income, higher grocery
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: prices are pushing her family to the limit.
• 4:41
  Speaker 10: We now have to rely on my husband's income. And
• 4:45
  Speaker 10: that could be quite stressful as well on him.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: A tight budget means tough choices.
• 4:50
  Speaker 10: Something like beef, which we used to eat often, now
• 4:55
  Speaker 10: the price of beef has risen so much that it
• 4:57
  Speaker 10: becomes like a luxury for us. So we often don't
• 5:00
  Speaker 10: buy beef now.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Prices are changing the way she shops. And what the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: family eats.
• 5:07
  Speaker 10: We buy stuff on sale and then try to meal
• 5:09
  Speaker 10: plan from what's on sale as opposed to the opposite where,
• 5:12
  Speaker 10: you know, if there's something that we want to eat,
• 5:14
  Speaker 10: we would buy the groceries.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: At the store, she checks the apps to see what's
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: on sale.
• 5:19
  Speaker 10: Strawberries on sale. Ooh, looks like buy two and get
• 5:23
  Speaker 10: 300 points.
• 5:24
  Speaker 11: Nice.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: And heads straight for the deals. Let's see if Connie's
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: strategy pays off.
• 5:30
  Speaker 7: Do I really want it?
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: Hmm, I think I'll pass.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: For the most part, the cost of groceries has increased
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: faster than inflation. According to Statistics Canada, Canadians are paying
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: almost 30% more for groceries compared to five years ago.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: The federal government says it's trying to help. Earlier this year,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: introducing the groceries and essentials benefit for qualifying Canadians. And later,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: unveiling the first ever national food security strategy.
• 6:00
  Speaker 11: More than $ 3 billion in this strategy of investments. to
• 6:04
  Speaker 11: tackle the challenges in our food system through targeted measures
• 6:08
  Speaker 11: and investments to help create more affordable, sustainable and resilient
• 6:12
  Speaker 11: food supply.
• 6:13
  Speaker 10: Chain in Canada.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Canada's big three each take in tens of billions of
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: dollars a year. Jim says they bear some of the
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: blame for higher prices.
• 6:24
  Speaker 9: Grocery store profits are not the only reason for food inflation, certainly,
• 6:28
  Speaker 9: but they have taken a bad situation and made it worse.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: He says they're adding their own profits on top of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: higher supply chain costs. Back to Connie. Time to check
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: out her total. Oh, it's a long receipt.
• 6:44
  Speaker 11: Yes.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: This is a week's worth of groceries for you.
• 6:46
  Speaker 11: That's right.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Grand total, you want to read it out for us? $ 148. 87.
• 6:49
  Speaker 10: Connie's most expensive item, a $ 16 pack of medium ground beef.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: The price was up 12.9% year over year. Why is
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: beef so expensive these days?
• 7:05
  Speaker 8: We had two consecutive years of very dry weather. Cows
• 7:08
  Speaker 8: need grass. If there's less grass, you can run fewer cows.
• 7:13
  Speaker 9: And unfortunately, those droughts were not a one-off event. And this, again,
• 7:18
  Speaker 9: is another sign of how climate change is going to
• 7:20
  Speaker 9: affect our food bill.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Other items in Connie's cart saw price swings too. Berries
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: were up 8.5%. And carrots, 16.6% year over year. How
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: about the rest of our $ 100 shoppers? Bruna Harriot's shopping
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: for herself and her son.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so we can't get no burgers today. This is $ 20,
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: we have to skip it. Remember you serve a nice
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: burger on the grill and you'd be like, yeah. I can't,
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: I'm getting my headaches, I'm getting dizzy.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I really getting overwhelmed. Dorothy Ware shops for a household
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: of six.
• 8:01
  Speaker 6: I have to stretch everything I get.
• 8:03
  Speaker 7: And then if we get chicken, chicken can be dinner
• 8:06
  Speaker 7: and lunch snacks.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Both come in under $ 100. About $ 70 for Myrna, who
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: holds back for fear of going over, and about $ 93
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: for Dorothy, who says she already has some staples at home.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Do you think that'll cover you for the week?
• 8:32
  Speaker 7: This, making stir fries and making everything out of it, hopefully,
• 8:37
  Speaker 7: but there's no room for error.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: Basically, this amount of money is for two days. This
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: is not going to keep me for the week.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: That might be close.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Our remaining shoppers, Mike Armstrong and Munawar Khan, blow past
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: the $ 100. Mike spends about $ 132 for his family of five.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Looking at what you have here, do you feel like
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: you got value for your money?
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: No.
• 9:00
  Speaker 6: No, I do not.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of money.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: No, but it's just one of those generally accepted things, right? Like,
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: this isn't valuable, but you need it, and it's just
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: so much a cost. It seems like there's not much
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: you can do.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: And Munawar, he spends $ 172 for himself and his wife,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: but knocks off 20 bucks with points.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: If they can reduce the price, it would be good.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: If the cost of living can be, like, reduced, it
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: will be very good for the common people.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Both by tomatoes. A whopping year-over-year increase of 31.7%.
• 9:33
  Speaker 9: Tomatoes are one of the products really affected by that
• 9:36
  Speaker 9: loss of migrant farm labor in the United States. The
• 9:39
  Speaker 9: reduction in the amount of planting of tomatoes in the U.S.
• 9:42
  Speaker 9: and then the shift in production to Mexico. So just
• 9:44
  Speaker 9: as they were shifting the production to Mexico, they had
• 9:47
  Speaker 9: some terrible weather there that reduced the crops. That was
• 9:50
  Speaker 9: compounded by the diesel price shock that we've seen, again
• 9:55
  Speaker 9: attributable to Donald Trump and his.
• 9:57
  Speaker 8: War in the Persian Gulf.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: In the end, four of our six shoppers spend more
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: than $ 100. We ask Loblaw, Metro and Sobeys for interviews
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: about their prices. They decline. Instead, Loblaw sends a statement.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: They say they also want lower grocery prices and are
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: focused on delivering value. but say many of the factors
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: contributing to the high prices are out of their control.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: In a statement, Metro 2 says a lot of outside
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: factors are adding to the high prices, saying they know
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Canadians are concerned and work to provide meaningful savings. Sobeys
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: didn't reply to numerous requests for answers. We also reach
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: out to the Retail Council of Canada for an industry-wide perspective.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: It tells us grocery businesses make between two and four
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: cents on every dollar for food. And any growth in
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: profit comes from non-food areas.
• 10:54
  Speaker 8: Even when we hear that inflation is going down, Prices
• 10:58
  Speaker 8: aren't going down, not to any significant degree. And it's
• 11:01
  Speaker 8: not only buying for one week. When you're living paycheck
• 11:04
  Speaker 8: to paycheck, you can't buy something that's on special and
• 11:07
  Speaker 8: keep it in the fridge.
• 11:08
  Speaker 9: There's a number of things kind of coming together, a
• 11:10
  Speaker 9: sort of perfect storm situation on the food price issue
• 11:13
  Speaker 9: in particular. When you put all of these different factors together,
• 11:16
  Speaker 9: the geopolitics, the fuel price shocks, of course, the tariffs,
• 11:21
  Speaker 9: the climate issues, then food is particularly sensitive.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Coming up, how far would you go to save on groceries?
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: We aim to spend $ 35 a week for food. With
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: food costs squeezing family budgets, some shoppers are getting creative.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: It's very simple. Marketplace is sending you on a grocery run.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Our $ 100 challenge shows how far your money goes. But
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: what happens when you don't have enough?
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: We're uncovering a reality that's more common than many shoppers think.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: More people are going hungry. It's interesting how you're always
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: thinking about this, though. You always have to think, what
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: can I afford? How long can it last?
• 12:16
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Has it always been like this?
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: No, but now, definitely. Are they going to be able
• 12:21
  Speaker 7: to not be hungry while they're sitting in a classroom?
• 12:23
  Speaker 7: Am I going to have enough for dinner when they
• 12:25
  Speaker 7: get home for everyone? Or is this tonight that I
• 12:28
  Speaker 7: miss out and I make sure that they eat?
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Will you skip dinner?
• 12:31
  Speaker 7: Sometimes, if I don't have enough, yeah.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Christina Kennedy says she'd be one of them, if not
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: for her local food bank.
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: I moved back from British Columbia and I had just
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: moved into an apartment and just given birth to twins
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: and had just mounting expenses. I just realized that I
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: couldn't make everything work.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: All that after the death of her husband.
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: I was always the kind of person that really tried
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: to do everything myself. Sometimes you have to ask for help.
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: You have to ask other people to support you.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: The Toronto food bank she visits, Nourish East End, is
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: a lifeline. But it only extends so far.
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: The food bank will give you approximately two days worth
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: of food.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Then there's the wait. Users can only visit once a week.
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: You definitely still have to spend quite a bit of
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: money at the grocery store every week.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: What are you thinking about the prices you see?
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: I think it's getting harder and harder to manage on
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: a fixed income and it's not sustainable.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Christina is a mom of four and a person with
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: a disability. Finding work is difficult, so she relies on
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: support from the province.
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: So I have to pay rent. The income I have, bills,
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: is about a quarter, and then I have about a
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: quarter left for food.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: That's about $ 800 a month, she says, for herself and
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: four children.
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: It's extremely hard. That's why I come here.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: According to Foodbanks Canada, 2025 saw nearly 2.2 million visits
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: in a single month. That's doubled since 2019. Reverend Breanne
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Swan and Kathy Forrest manage the food bank Christina uses.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: It's not that we don't have enough food. It's that
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: people can't afford it after they pay rent or mortgage.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: The price of the food itself is going exponentially.
• 14:21
  Speaker 6: If we need to go out and buy, say, milk,
• 14:24
  Speaker 6: when that price goes up, we can buy less and
• 14:27
  Speaker 6: less with our money.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So you're going to show me around the food bank?
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: I am, yes. So we'll pretend we're a household of two.
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: Okay. Today.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I see it goes all the way up to eight
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: or more.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: All the way, yeah, exactly. So Cobb's supplies bread to us,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: to a lot.
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: Of other agencies in the city.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: How much could we get on a day like today?
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: A day like today, probably... A loaf of bread and
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: then maybe some buns.
• 14:55
  Speaker 11: Okay.
• 14:56
  Speaker 10: So we're going around.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is sort of a snack table. We've
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: got some granola bars. We don't hand out a whole
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: lot of sweet treat snack foods and stuff, but it's
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: really great when we can.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: We move on to produce. This is interesting because people
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: tell us how expensive fresh fruit and vegetables are these days.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: That's true. This must be in demand.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Very much in demand. Depending on household size, they might
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: be able to get a tomato, some lettuce, but rarely
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: sort of enough of everything.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So for a family of two, probably two apples.
• 15:38
  Speaker 9: Today is basically what they're going to get.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: It's not a lot.
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: It isn't.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Last stop.
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: Protein.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Two people, two choices for the week. So that could
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: be peanut butter and some meat or.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Peanut butter, some eggs.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: So six eggs, six eggs. Again, that's not a lot.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: It's sometimes heartbreaking because oftentimes people will say like, it's
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: not enough.
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: I think that like it can happen to anyone. I
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: don't think most people wake up one day and think, Oh,
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: next month I'll have to access the food bank. Sometimes
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: things happen in people's lives that are very destabilizing.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: We keep hearing that food banks are not a permanent solution,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: but people keep turning to in more and more numbers.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Now food banks are this integral part of the social
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: safety net propped up by community organizations, oftentimes faith communities.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: And the more and more that we have to resource food,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: the more and more that lets governments off the hook
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: for actually doing the job of taking care of people.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Ottawa says its new food strategy will improve access to
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: affordable food.
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: There's all kinds of issues relevant to high grocery prices.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: After the break, we asked the government how and when.
• 16:59
  Speaker 6: It's an overall plan. I mean, this isn't going to
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: happen overnight.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: We're digging deeper into the cost of your groceries and
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the extreme ways people are trying to keep up. The
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Carney government is promising to make food more affordable. But
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: experts are wary of promising lower prices.
• 17:28
  Speaker 8: I think the food security strategy is an incredibly positive
• 17:31
  Speaker 8: thing to do, but I think we're dooming it for
• 17:35
  Speaker 8: failure if we're saying that it's going to reduce food prices.
• 17:38
  Speaker 9: Stabilizing food prices and then making sure that Canadians have
• 17:41
  Speaker 9: enough income to afford food is a better goal.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: We make repeated requests for an interview with Minister of
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Agriculture Heath MacDonald. His office declines. That's him in the background. Hmm,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: maybe he didn't hear us. But we don't give up,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: catching up with him at an event in Charlottetown.
• 18:05
  Speaker 9: This is for CBC Marketplace.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: The grocery benefit leaves some people out.
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: And the food security plan is going to take years.
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: What are you doing right now to bring down high
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: grocery prices for all Canadians? There's all kinds of issues
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: relevant to high grocery prices, things that are out of
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: our control to some extent. So what we need to
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: do as a country is start building out for the
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: future and making sure that when we are faced with
• 18:25
  Speaker 6: these challenges, that we can handle it a lot better
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: than we have in the past.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: So when will shoppers see prices drop?
• 18:34
  Speaker 6: It's an overall plan. I mean, this isn't going to
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: happen overnight.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: In fact, the plan will take years. Until then, Canadians
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: are left to find their own ways to make ends meet.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Where are we going to start? In North Vancouver, Michelle
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Nidam is taking grocery saving to an extreme.
• 18:51
  Speaker 10: We have $ 5 to work with, so maybe this is
• 18:53
  Speaker 10: two pounds, so this is $ 3, so maybe we could
• 18:55
  Speaker 10: also get a few apples.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: That's a tight budget. She and her husband challenge themselves
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to live on just $ 35 a week for food in
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: one of Canada's most expensive cities. And they do it
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: for four months.
• 19:10
  Speaker 7: The goal?
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: To pay off a debt. But it completely changes the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: way they shop. The food prices really affected us throughout
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the challenge. Every time something would go up, it would
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: just feel terrible. How has it changed the way you
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: grocery shop? Now I start with a number three. with
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the number that I want to shop from, and we
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: really stick with it. Whereas before, it was just add
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: whatever we need to the cart. I mean, they look.
• 19:34
  Speaker 11: Good and they smell good.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I just can't believe there's such few ingredients. These lentil
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: patties are one of the low-cost meals that help them
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: survive the $ 35 a week challenge. So what does about
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: $ 5 a day for two people taste like? Okay, I'm
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: going to give it a try. Well, it's very simple.
• 19:56
  Speaker 11: Yes.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: But I guess if you're using that many ingredients, it's
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: going to be that simple. Nothing fancy, just cheap ingredients
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: stretched as far as they'll go.
• 20:10
  Speaker 9: Thank you.